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THE TOWN OF BECKET. 



At a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society, on Thursday, January 9, 1890, Dr. Samuel 
A. Green made the following remarks : — 

In a letter of our late associate, General Palfrey, written to 
me last summer, he quotes from Mr. Whitmore's article on 
the Names of Towns in Massachusetts, published in the Pro- 
ceedings (vol. xii. pp. 393-419), and refers to the statement 
there made on page 405, that the name of Becket, as applied 
to the town in Berkshire County, " can hardly be traced." 
General Palfrey suggests that it came from Beckett, the name 
of the estate in English Berkshire, owned by the Lords 
Barrington. On mentioning the suggestion to Mr. R. C. 
Winthrop, Jr., he at once concurred in the opinion, and said, 
furthermore, that the name of the Barringtons was originally 
Shute, and that one of the family was Colonel Samuel Shute, 
Governor of the Province of Massachusetts from the year 1716 
to 1723. A niece of Colonel Shute was married to Sir Francis 
Bernard, Governor of the Province from the year 1760 to 
1769 ; and accordingly, when, in 1765, Governor Bernard was 
called upon to name certain towns in the western part of the 
State, he seems to have called one of them after the family- 
seat of his wife's cousin, Lord Barrington. 

Akin to this subject, there is another statement, in the 
same article on the Names of Towns in Massachusetts, which 






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will bear modification. In a note at the bottom of page 407, 
Mr. Whitmore refers to the town of Winchester, formerly 
called Arlington, and says that it was in Hampshire County, 
but that he " cannot find its present representative." This 
town was in territory once claimed by Massachusetts, but 
which, by the running of the new provincial line in 1741, was 
brought within the limits of New Hampshire, and comes now 
in Cheshire County of that State. 



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